Lesbian Couple Admits to Strangling and Burying Ex Alive

BY Diane Anderson-Minshall

July 30 2012 3:16 PM ET

Two Pennsylvania women have admitted to killing one woman's former girlfriend in a shocking murder on May 17. Police say that 18-year-old Jade Olmstead and 20-year-old Ashley Barber admitted to luring Olmstead's ex, 20-year-old Brandy Stevens, to the woods just outside their home near Cochranton, Penn., where they beat and strangled her, according to The Erie Times-News. The couple buried Stevens in a grave they had dug prior to the murder. Police trooper Eric Mallory told CBS News that when the women saw that Stevens was still breathing in the grave, they threw a large rock on her and poured water into her mouth and nose to try to drown her. Stevens eventually suffocated on the dirt, according to autopsy reports.

The New York Daily News reported that the two women savagely beat Stevens, stuffing a cap from the movie Saw into her mouth to avoid her screams. As Barber strangled Stevens with a rope, Olmstead bludgeon her ex-girlfriend and also head-butted her so hard that she bruised her own forehead.

The Erie Times-News reported that Crawford County District Attorney Francis Schultz is considering seeking the death penalty. Olmstead and Barber are both charged with homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide and evidence tampering (for burning their own and their victim's blood soaked clothing). They will be arraigned on Aug. 24.